There is no argument about will going on. You created that in your head from one part of a quote I posted and then made it into my argument because you couldn't refute my real argument about overtraining.

I squatted exactly 200 the first time I tried, after a regimen of bodyweight conditioning.

With extreme vagueness and no scientific basis.

Intensity is the percentage of your one rep max, or your max heart rate, depending on the activity.

I figure out how often and how hard to go by the muscle soreness I feel the next day. It's a new program but it's definitely not overuse of the muscles.

I can easily show how you can squat heavy very often. Take the definition of intensity as percentage of one rep max. If you're doing low volume, you can work very often with heavy weights without fatigue.
Who's more likely to get injured? The guy who does a few heavy working sets or the guy who does 12 rep sets to fatigue even after his smaller muscles give out?

Now take someone who does this and then adds volume as he wants to.
Who's more likely to get injured?
The guy who trains ten triples three times a week with other types of exercise every other day with no signals of overuse because he sleeps 12 hours?
Or the guy who's fatigued all day, cramping and feeling his back and rotator cuffs getting twinged?

I am not arguing that you train constantly and not listen to your body.
My argument is that new trainees listen to their own body and learn enough to design their own personally suited program instead of buying into some arbitrary notion of lowest common denominator work capacity or how long it takes for a muscle to heal. Follow that line and you should be able to do as much exercise as you want to, as long as you don't want to train with pain.

Just another note on conditioning: when in high school i was the 98lb weakling, but when it came time for a school competition for pull ups I did 36. Clean, ...bar to the clavical reps. I did pull ups every day. But i was still only 98lbs with arms like bean poles,...hardly the strongest guy.
When talking about HEAVY, the definition would be about 80% of a persons max. Thats not intensity as you have commented it to be. Intensity is reletive. You are saying that if a person does twenty bicep reps, the intensity is because of their squat max. Intensity is the result of invested energy. If intensity were simply a relative definition of max, what about the intensity of doing twenty reps, or a super set? Lets not forget about the lifters body weight. A 175 pound person is not going to squat a 1000 pounds. If they do, the event will be far more important to the fact they prove me wrong. Body weight ratio to the weight lifted is not intensity. Although muscle weighs more, and obviously the better over fat, but body fat is still leverage and a very real factor in lifting huge amounts of weight. The guy on that site you posted who lifted 300 overhead with one hand, didn't he have a body weight of 250? Although an impressive lift, he lifted just 50 pounds more than his body weight. What about his other shoulder, if he can only get 275 out of his left shoulder does that mean he simply doesn't have the Will.
By the way, that web site you offered up had some interesting historical info, and i should have mentioned that before, but the tone of voice of the author was complete arrogance, and i can't think of a better example that would represent the voice of steroids. When you chose that site to represent your point, that is what i responded to. Nothing personal to you.
If it is simply about Will to do so, then a six pack of RedBull should get me a 1000 pound squat for the day. Although I advocate natural lifting over steroids, this much is true: while on anabolic, there is no shortage of The Will To Do So. I refer to that as the "high" of anabolic. "A door, ...oh how irrelevant, I will just smash right through it". The sensation of being immortal. Naturally produced, that is very powerful, addictive, and irrational just as it is with anabolic. Meaning that the mind will motivate beyond it's own physical capabilities. Great things can happen in other regards, but the conversation is still on overtraining.
If this conversation continues toward examples of the extreme elite, it won't be long before I become redundant, or exceed what ever level of knowledge i have. My workout strategy isn't about the lowest common denominator. The lowest common does not bench a 1000 pounds. The common doesn't even do 500. The people who do this weight still follow basic principles that are as intense on recuperation as they are at lifting, with or with out drugs. Strategies vary per individual, and trying to tell someone how they should work out is like telling them how they should raise their kids: it ain't going to happen. For the simple fact that i have never squatted a 1000 lbs, there is little more i can say about it. I would just be riding on the accomplishments of other people. But if it's about how to double body weight with muscle mass, there is still more for me to say from experience.
Like i said, my posts are not about the golden routine, they are about the survival there of: being' the fittest.
And to you personally, thanks for your enthusiasm, it is contagious.

Yes you can only gain muscle by being in a calorie surplus. And you cannot only gain muscle. When you add size you will add both muscle and fat. How clean you eat, how much of a surplus, and AAS will determine how much of each you gain. Believe it or not doing nothing but eating a lot will add to your muscle mass, you will just add some much fat you won't notice the effect.

Likewise you can only lose fat by being in a calorie deficit. And you can't lose just fat, you will lose some lean mass too.

Instead of offering advice let me just say that don't listen to people on the internet. Get to a real gym, find the big strong guys in the corner and talk to them about working in with them.

Lift weights. Lift BIG weights. Now lift them many, many times. Now repeat this with many muscular groups, ideally with compound lifts, olympic lifts and heavy dumbbells. When you finish, do high intensity interval training until it feels like your heart is beating you over the head with a frying pan 150 times per minute and you cough up your own lungs in a flaming hairball of blood.Then beat your hands on a bag of steel shot for 20 minutes.

Now, repeat this every day of the week. If you can't survive this, you're a dysgenic element.

I know this because I live this. When I was about twenty I got tired of being skinny, so I bought a pullup bar and did lots of pullups, pushups and handstand pushups. I gained 60 lbs of muscle doing that over the course of a year. When I stopped gaining, I started lifting weights. Now I lift weights at least five days a week. I've put several hundred pounds onto my squat and bench press, and I'm rapidly en route to having a total of ~1400 lbs. I did not use supplements. I not only eat pure paleo, but I don't even eat that much. I went from 150 to 215 on roughly one meal a day of fatty animal organs and vegetables. I didn't use any special routines either - just high weight, high volume, retard strength and hate. It worked out just fine. No joint pains, no injuries, nothing.

All true whites are easily capable of accomplishing this. It's in the blood. Even if there's more people attacking him than agreeing with him, Defendu is right and everyone who disagrees with him is wrong. I am living proof of this.

This is true, but I want to clarify something for most people - we all are in caloric surplus. You really do not need much food to sustain yourself. Compound lifts and olympic lifts produce a strong endocrine response that allows people to make steroid-like gains on almost no food. I know, because as I said I lift quite a lot, quite regularly on one small meal a day.

This is true, but I want to clarify something for most people - we all are in caloric surplus. You really do not need much food to sustain yourself. Compound lifts and olympic lifts produce a strong endocrine response that allows people to make steroid-like gains on almost no food. I know, because as I said I lift quite a lot, quite regularly on one small meal a day.

That's because your caloric needs are low to begin with.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HUND

Just another note on conditioning: when in high school i was the 98lb weakling, but when it came time for a school competition for pull ups I did 36. Clean, ...bar to the clavical reps. I did pull ups every day. But i was still only 98lbs with arms like bean poles,...hardly the strongest guy.

Could have eaten more and gained muscle on pull ups.

Quote:

You are saying that if a person does twenty bicep reps, the intensity is because of their squat max.

Percentage of one rep bicep curl max, if talking about pure strength training.

Intensity needs to be clearly defined so we don't fall into the trap of treadmill runners saying "I'm sweating, this must be intense!" as they chat with their friends and watch muted TVs in the gym.

Lifting a high percentage of one rep max keeps intensity high enough that you can't do as many reps as with a lower percentage, therefore it works.
No matter your skill level or body weight, 90% of one rep max is still 90% of one rep max.

In terms of cardio, increased percentage of max heart rate is accepted as a definition of intensity. You can go forever at 40% but not long at 90%.

In between, would be the amount of work in a given time frame.

Using these definitions, intensity is set apart from total workload and fatigue.

Quote:

The guy on that site you posted who lifted 300 overhead with one hand, didn't he have a body weight of 250?

Saxon and Aston's body weight are not mentioned on the site.

Goerner, who did the 727 pound one hand deadlift, weighed between 240 and 275.

C&P used them as examples to prove that high volume and frequent training produces results without steroids.

And here we learn that Saxon practiced the bent press and clean & jerk every day along with other exercises:"The Saxon Trio: What They Ate and How They Trained" - No BS MMA and Martial ArtsProbably one of the few concessions the Saxons made to exercise without heavy weights was jumping. ...
After this, they practiced deep knee bends with the barbell held at the chest; they came up from the squat and, without pausing, jerked the weight to arms' length.

He never touched a steroid in his life. He slept like a baby, ate like a machine and trained something every day. The way I see it, he practiced moving the weights instead of exhausting himself fighting his own muscles. When you approach the lifting program as gaining the skill of lifting weights, you can train frequently, because overtraining is fatigue.

Then there was the pre-steroid era bodybuilder John Grimek:John Grimek: Insightful Look & Interview with Bodybuilder John GrimekI'd usually train about five days a week and sometimes six. How long? Sometimes when I felt ambitious and I wanted to do more, it would take four to five hours. Normally it would not last more than two hours at the most. I trained everything in every workout-I didn't do what they call split workouts and train legs and arms one day, back and other stuff the next day. No, the only way I ever isolated a group of muscles was when I was finished with my routine for the day and I still thought I needed more for my back or chest or legs or whatever. Then I threw in an additional two to three exercises and much heavier-you know, trying to maximize the thing. And that was it. What is called split training wasn't used then, although I had read somewhere that Hackenschmidt was using a method where he would isolate certain groups on certain days or else put more emphasis on a specific part while training the entire body on a given day. But I never had a yen for that. I was making progress all over, so there was no need for a concentration on a certain area. And I never found that training the whole body in each workout was too tiring. In fact, when I got through, I was feeling a helluva lot better and more ambitious and energetic than I did when I started.

It's been rumored for years that York gave his weight lifting team steroids, Grimek among them.

I don't pay any attention to people who claim to never use them. Only one person knows for sure and that is the person and who ever is around them if they do it. So many people lie there is no point even questioning it. I can say that I do know of at least a couple prominent life time drug free lifters who are anything but drug free.

Am I saying you can't get bigger and stronger without steroids? Of course you can. Are you going to be the best you can be without them? No you won't.